IPO-bound Urban Company forays into quick commerce with 15-minute maid booking service

IPO-bound Urban Company forays into quick commerce with 15-minute maid booking service

IPO-bound home services startup Urban Company has ventured into the quick commerce space through its new offering Insta Maids – a 15-minute maid booking service.

This includes services like utensil cleaning, brooming and mopping, cooking preparation, etc., carried out by maids who are paid by the hour.

Insta Maids is still in initial stages and has been launched as a pilot in Mumbai, according to sources aware of the matter. Whether the service is scaled to the rest of the geographies Urban Company operates in remains to be seen.

Urban Company’s foray into quick commerce comes amid rising competitive intensity in India’s rapidly growing quick commerce sector. Several quick delivery startups are now seen cropping up in sectors outside the traditional grocery categories that quick commerce has popularized, including medicines, food delivery, and even human expertise. These include companies like Snabbit, Topmate, Swish, Zing and FirstClub, among others.

These startups, which are building in a space already dominated by large players such as Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, have also been able to raise funding rounds from notable venture capital firms amid growing investor interest in quick commerce.

For instance, Snabbit, which also offers quick on-demand home services, recently raised $5.5 million in Series A round funding led by Elevation Capital, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from prominent angel investors including Meesho's Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Unacademy's Gaurav Munjal and Spinny's Niraj Singh, the company has said.

Similarly, 10-minute food delivery startup Swish, earlier this month, raised $14 million (roughly Rs 122 crore) in a series A funding round led by UK-based Hara Global. The company’s existing investor, Accel, also participated in the round, Moneycontrol had reported.

The quick grocery delivery market has grown from just $300 million in FY22 to as much as $7.1 billion in FY25, with a 24-fold increase in gross order value (GOV) during the same period. The industry is projected to hit $89 billion in FY31, from $7.1 billion in FY25, according to a recent report by Blume Ventures.

Urban Company’s venture into quick commerce comes ahead of its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The firm is reportedly planning to file draft papers for a potential Rs 3,000 crore IPO before the end of March.